WARREN, Maine — Knox County Sheriff Donna Dennison said Monday that her office was investigating an unusual stolen vehicle case.

A 2000 Subaru sports utility vehicle was apparently stolen Saturday night, involved in a crash, and then returned by the following morning and left outside the owner’s home, the sheriff said.

The vehicle owner reported parking it outside her residence on the Oyster River Road near Montgomery Avenue at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday and then when she went outside shortly before 8 a.m. on Sunday, the vehicle was there but in much different condition.

The right rear window was smashed out, the right outside mirror was missing and paint was scratched from the right side of the hood to the right rear of the vehicle as if it had scraped against another object in an accident, Dennison said.

The keys had been left in the vehicle by the owner, the sheriff said. Some cash was reported missing from the vehicle by its owner.

The sheriff said she suspects that young people took the SUV simply to go somewhere and returned it because they needed to return to near that location. She said there have been no reports of another vehicle being damaged in a crash during that period.

“I would like to say they were nice thieves to return the vehicle but they stove it up,” she said.